Charitable Impact Blog

10 Ways You Made 2014 a Great Year for Giving

It was the best of times, it was, well, the best of times. In fact, 2014 for Chimp was filled to the brim with fun, growth, inspiration, and lots and lots of charitable giving.

You helped us hit a major milestone this year — you’ve now given more than $50 million through Chimp, benefitting 3,970 Canadian charities!

And together we hit many other milestones as well. We had so many amazing moments in 2014 that we wanted to relive a few of the most significant achievements, which we couldn’t have reached without you!

Major Donor-sponsored Campaign: Love Lives On for Pregnancy Centres

Early in the year, 30 pregnancy centres across Canada came together through the Love Lives On campaign to turn a $100,000 matching fund into $277,109 in just a few weeks, demonstrating an important new way donors can amplify their charitable impact.

Charity-powered Campaign: Ignite Giving Helps Alleviate Poverty in BC

Chimp’s first Ignite Giving, a collection of charity fundraising campaigns for a common cause, shone the spotlight on work being done to fight poverty, mental illness, homelessness and related issues in BC communities. The initiative attracted almost 1,500 donors to 48 campaigns run by 45 different charities, raising $515,120 in just under eight weeks!

Company-powered Campaign: TechPong Supports Vancouver’s DTES

In a bid to support the neighbourhood many companies call home, Vancouver’s tech community came together to raise money for Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Two months of company fundraising culminated in an epic TechPong event in October with more than 350 participants raising $71,131 for Downtown Eastside charities.

Giving Across Canada: Canadians Kick off Giving Season with the Gift of Giving

Our referral-based Giving Tree saw 1,000 participants register to receive $10 to give to their favourite charity in the week leading up to Giving Tuesday. On December 1, we sent $10,000 charitable dollars to participants, who claimed the funds through their Chimp accounts.

Fee-free Giving: Hootsuite Covers Fees All Year Long

Thanks to Hootsuite, giving was fee-free for the entire year! We’re back to our regular fees as of January 1, but even with the fees, we’re still be the most cost-effective way to give to charity in Canada.

Sports-powered Giving: Changing the Game with Charitable Rewards

Chimp Sports’ Play Better program, which rewards team-building skills development with charitable dollars, signed on 30 soccer teams and 10 basketball teams in 2014, its first year. By injecting charity into a system where it didn’t exist before, Play Better raised $10,000 and already has another 174 soccer teams lined up to start playing better in 2015. It’s also planning to enter into hockey, cycling and running, as well as into the USA.

Passion-powered Campaigns: Amplifying Charitable Impact

More than 150 charitable campaigns ran on Chimp in 2014, and through them we saw just how much passion drives people to give to and fundraise for causes they care about. From the Whitecaps’ Buck Up for Mental Health campaign, which activated soccer fans during Vancouver Whitecaps games to raise over $21,000 for mental health charities by donating a “buck”, to celebrity chef Ned Bell’s Chefs for Oceans campaign, which took him across Canada by bike and raised $27,000 in support of sustainable seafood, the passion was truly palpable.

Thousands of people came together to support charitable causes through Chimp Giving Groups in 2014. And this is where the human spirit of charity, not to mention drive, perseverance and dedication, really shone through. From kids like 11-year-old Quinn Smith-Windsor (pictured above) raising $10,000 for clean water in Africa (by walking 80,000 steps, no less) to small charities like Jacob’s Well, which inspired abundant giving within its Downtown Eastside community through a Giving Group and matching funds, groups used their creativity to truly engage with donors.

Matching-powered Fundraising: Doubling Donations to Drive Success

The power of matching donations was proved over and over again on Chimp in 2014. We wrote about a few campaigns that used the power of matching to great success, as well as how to set up your own matching sponsor to optimize your campaign results, and we expect to see many more charities, employers and individual fundraisers doubling donations to drive success in 2015.

Thank You for Giving with Chimp!

Our founder and CEO, John Bromley, recently shared his thoughts about making charity thoughtful, purposeful, continuous, and, ultimately, more meaningful.

“If we reframe the way we think about charitable giving, we can make it an experience that reflects our values, goals and budgets. We can purposefully choose charities that are working on issues we really care about, and plan to give to them all year long. Then the satisfaction we feel by giving will increase.” — John Bromley

That’s the experience we hope you have with Chimp, and we firmly believe that giving purposefully and thoughtfully on your own terms is not only empowering, it’s also an effective way to change the world.

As we say goodbye to 2014, we’re thankful you let us help you help charities. Here’s to a 2015 filled with more giving, more good, and more of you changing the world with your generosity!

10 Ways You Made 2014 a Great Year for Giving

Lisa Manfield is a digital writer with Chimp. She has been a writer and editor with BC Living, BC Business and Backbone magazines, and a content strategist for numerous small businesses and tech startups. She also teaches writing and editing for the web at Simon Fraser University.

CHIMP is an online giving platform for everyday philanthropists, whether new or seasoned, young or old, wealthy or not. With features like instantly organized tax receipts, automated donations, group giving, and privacy protection, your CHIMP Account lets you give now or save up to give later—whatever is most rewarding to you.